The official blog of the Campaign for the American Reader, an independent initiative to encourage more readers to read more books.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Comic novels

I have a new post up at Spot-on on "great comic novels."Two classics--Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov and Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert--were easy picks in the category.

After that, it was much harder to decide which novels to discuss. From England, should I go with P.G. Wodehouse or Lucky Jim? I went with the latter. Which got me thinking about other comic academic novels set closer to home, like Richard Russo's Straight Man and Jane Smiley's Moo.

What about Southern comic novels? I mention a few ... and neglect hundreds.

And I briefly mention my favorite erotic comic novel, Hollywood comic novel, two superb collections of short stories, and a few other books.